Archive for the ‘Perceptive Peripatetic’ Category

(This is an earlier audio bit, reposted here from elsewhere just to consolidate onto this site with the other audio. Meanwhile, I am working on the next episode of Stir-Fried Stochasticity, as well as the next episode of “Thoughtkindness” for Hacker Public Radio.)

Gather around the campfire, boys and girls and everyone else. It’s story time.

(This is both an attempt to entertain AND a technical test – I’d be most appreciative if any or all of you left me a comment letting me know how this works for you. I’ll put some technical information at the end of the post.)

After you hear this harrowing tale, if you can’t make it out to Mount Ranier National Park to verify the story for yourself, you can see a picture of the monument online. Click or scan the QRCode image to the right to see it after you’ve heard the story.

Feedback is welcome and encouraged. For those who are interested, here’s what this post is supposed to do, technically:

If you are viewing this post in a modern (HTML5-supporting) browser, the “native” audio player in your browser should appear above, allowing you to press “play” and listen to the story. Of all the modern HTML5-supporting browsers, most support the high-quality (and legally free to use) “Ogg Vorbis” audio format and will play that version. If you are in the minority of HTML5-browser-using population (Safari or IE9), an MP3 version should play instead. (The problem with Safari is that Apple doesn’t include a Quicktime component for Ogg media formats out of the box. Personally, I would recommend going ahead and installing the Free Quicktime Components, which will enable Ogg media formats for Safari, iTunes, and all other Quicktime-using programs, including enabling Apple platform applications to create files of these types so you can participate, too.)

If you are NOT using a modern, HTML5-supporting browser at all (or are perhaps using one I’ve never heard of that supports neither higher-quality Ogg Vorbis nor MP3) – mainly Microsoft’s previous “Internet Explorer” browsers and really old versions of Firefox or Opera that may still be in use – if you have Java installed, a Java-based Ogg Vorbis player should appear instead, allowing you to play the higher-quality audio anyway.

If your browser doesn’t support HTML5 AND doesn’t support Java, a link to an Adobe Flash-based MP3 player should appear. Click on that, and you SHOULD have a window pop up that will play the lower-quality MP3 version of the audio.

In short, nearly everyone should be able to play the audio if I’ve done all of this correctly. Please let me know.

This was originally the default “first post” entry that comes with a new wordpress install. It’s MINE now, though!

I’ve been needing to re-make dogphilosophy.net into something useful for years now, so here goes. I’m planning to turn this into my oggcasting/podcasting site. I’ll be moving my handful of episodes thus far over here shortly, and then slowly adding to them.

Once it’s all working, you should be able to get a feed of every bit of audio I put out (and, perhaps eventually, video), or individual feeds for each topical category of audio presentation I come up with. Initially I have:

“Stir-Fried Stochasticity” – real science for nerds and normals alike. Most “science news” stories are regurgitated and parroted press-releases that don’t actually tell you what’s really going on. In “Stir-Fried Stochasticity”, each episode discusses an actual scientific publication (not a press release!) directly, or occasionally more than one publication on the same topic. As of today, there are three episodes done with a fourth finally being worked on and released Real Soon Now.

“Perceptive Peripatetic” – A place for me to share places or things that I happen to notice while I’m out wandering the world. As of today, there is only one episode (on “The Breakdancing Ghost of Narada Falls”, regarding something I saw at a particular spot inside of Mount Ranier National Park in Washington State).

“The Computer Is My Friend” – There are no episodes for this yet, but I figure it’s only a matter of time before my own computer-nerdity kicks in and I feel compelled to share some sort of techno-spiffiness with the world.

If I manage to do this properly, you’ll be able to subscribe to the feed or feeds like normal “podcasts” in either high-quality Ogg Vorbis or the older (but more widely supported) MP3 formats, or just listen to the audio directly from the website with any web browser that supports HTML5, Java, or Adobe Flash.

Geolocation will be included where appropriate as well.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. I’m doing this purely as a hobby, and the topics and rate at which new episodes are generated and released will be directly proportional to the amount of interest anyone (besides me) has in it.